Wednesday, 25 April 2018

An ode to Jester King Brewery

“Here in Texas, there are really only a couple of weeks a
year when you need to wear a jacket, when you can see your breath,” our tour
guide tells us. We’re standing next to a beautiful copper-lined coolship; this
large, rectangular, shallow fermentation vessel is used to deliberately
inoculate wort with wild, airborne yeasts and bacteria. Once nature has taken
course, the liquid is transferred to wooden barrels, and undergoes spontaneous
fermentation. Traditionally, this style of brewing is employed only in cool
weather, when lower ambient temperatures will allow the wort to cool overnight
and when the microbes in the atmosphere are thought to be at their most
balanced. For Jester King, that’s a tight window of time.

The strange thing is that, although we’re in mid-April, our
guide could be describing today’s surroundings. Arriving in Austin the previous
day, our Uber driver remarked, “y’all are getting a little taste of the Texas
weather”. It was a close, exhausting, almost prickly heat. Then a storm came
and the temperature dropped drastically overnight.

Most of the patrons at Jester King this Saturday afternoon
have jackets on; and scarves, and hats. Not me though; I packed nothing warmer
than a thin wool jumper, because I was going to Texas in the middle of spring
and didn’t think I’d need them. Fire-pits are lit, people huddled close to
their warmth. Grey ashy deposits stain
their clothes and, occasionally, float into their beers. Others get stuck into
photogenic pizzas from the rustic restaurant just down the hill whilst a band plays stripped-down
Christian songs and old country numbers on guitars, banjos and harmonicas. Bizarrely, a party of frat-boy types swagger up with cans
of Bud Light and are promptly, politely ejected.

What I’m trying to communicate is that Jester King is a
magical, serene place, and I’d have braved far colder temperatures to drink there.
Situated in Texas Hill Country outside Austin, it’s around a half-hour’s drive
from the city. Along the way, strip malls and roadside restaurants thin out,
replaced by vast ranch land.

Jester King make farmhouse beers. This is a broad term that
can encompass both clean saisons brewed with laboratory-cultivated yeast and
altogether wilder, more rustic beers. Jester King’s output lean toward the more
esoteric end of the scale but, for them, farmhouse is more than just a label. Their
house culture includes commercial strains from the European breweries that
influence them, such as Dupont and Thiriez, but also yeast and bacteria from
plants in the land surrounding the brewery. This reflects their ethos of making
beers that express something of their place; this can mean using foraged
ingredients, local well water and Texas malt.

SPON, the series of beers born of the aforementioned
coolship, are a fine demonstration of the brewery’s approach. Based on the techniques
used in traditional Belgium lambic brewing, including the traditional
long-winded ‘turbid mash’, they are not (and could never be) a simple
imitation. The yeasts and bacteria found in the beers are unique to their
surroundings – the same beer could never be reproduced elsewhere. SPON Three YearBlend combines young and aged spontaneously fermented beer, much like
traditonal gueuze. It’s tart, but not so challengingly sour, nor as tannic and
oaky, as the classics. It finishes dry and slightly bitter, leaving an
impression of utter balance and harmony. SPON Peach & Apricot has a jaw-droppingly
vibrant fruit flavour. It recalls the entire experience of biting into a peach; the sweet, juicy flesh, the dry sensation of
the skin and the gentle acidity.

Also given the coolship treatment is Abscission, a
collaboration with fellow travellers Scratch Brewing Co. from Illinois. Jester
King’s ethos has been applied to this truly collaborative beer, which includes
ingredients from both the Scratch farm and the Jester King ranch. The wort was
infused with grapevines, fallen leaves, spicebush, juniper branches, laurel and
sassafras – I honestly don’t even know what most of those are, but I can tell
you they added up to a very tasty beer. Subtly tart and maybe a tiny bit salty,
it has a wonderfully vibrant herbal and botanical flavour which is never
overpowering; a less subtle approach could have ended up tasting like a
high-end shower gel.

Funk Metal is one of the few Jester King beers that is
self-described as ‘sour’. It certainly has more bite than those I’ve mentioned
so far, but is no less balanced. An incredibly rich chocolate dominates the aroma and forms the foundation of its flavour, too. This is
followed by sour cherry notes and an acidic red wine quality, and it finishes
beautifully dry.

It’s always a pleasure to drink a brewery’s wares at the
source but here, standing on the land that so heavily shapes these beers, it’s a
particularly special privilege.

A word of advice; if you’re visiting the brewery using Uber, warn your driver that the map on their phone may try and take them up a rough track at the back of the property, and that they should look for the front entrance on the main road. When you’re being picked up at the end of your visit, I recommend walking down to said road and making that your pick-up point.